Innocuous sterilant using hemocyanin and functionalized fullerenes with broad-spectrum intracellular and interstitial microbiocidal and radical scavenging effects for packaged matter, biologics and organics including liquids, gases, tissue, organs, cells, and limbs with copper mediated oxygenation for viability and preservation

Abstract

Tissue and organ transplantation success is chiefly dependent on the harvest and preservation techniques employed. Yield and quality enhancements are needed, because qualified patient demand far outpaces donors and ultimately, tissues and organs stored and transported so as to render them in acceptable condition for surgery. In the case of corneal transplants, tissue supplies help 1 out of 70 patients in need despite being among the most successful such procedures today. Transplant success has improved overall with enhanced storage and transport methods that have allowed for greater time and distances to reach patients in need, whether corneas, kidneys, hearts, lungs, livers or other tissues, limbs or cellular materials. While corneal tissues specifically benefit from oxygenation via direct air contact and normal tears in a healthy individual, once donated, the lack of corneal vascularization can uniquely accelerate the depletion of oxygen that occurs upon harvesting of all transplant materials. Directly infusing oxygen has had little impact, given partial pressure requirements, volatility and reactivity to many compounds, including self-affinity or agglomeration and bubbling. However, the hemocyanin, such as that of the horseshoe crab (), can deliver oxygen directly to transplant tissues, while free radical scavenging by pristine fullerenes can help maintain cellular integrity. Horseshoe crabs have successfully evolved by developing two immunological mechanisms, amoebocytes and less characterized antiviral and gram-positive bactericidal properties ascribed to other hemolymph constituents. The amoebocytes have a specific, ultrasensitive affinity to gram-negative bacteria and fungi; they engulf and consume these microbes in an enzymatic coagulation process. However, hemocyanin is extracellular and non-toxic to mammalian tissue, notwithstanding its microbiocidal properties. As such, the viral-scale peptides appear to intracellularly invade the pathogens and disrupt replication without conferring a caustic or toxic effect on non-pathogenic tissue. Hence, hemocyanin appears to be non-immunogenic and thus applicable as a carrier molecule for some human therapeutics (e.g., hemocyanin from Keyhole Limpet snails). The present invention relates in the initial embodiment to the use of horseshoe crab hemocyanin and functionalized carbon nanostructures, halogenated fullerenes, pristine fullerenes and fullerene derivatives as an antimicrobial and antioxidant enrichment composition that is added to tissue storage and preservation media as a potent, broad-spectrum antimicrobial and tissue preservation composition for safe and effective storage and transport. Notably, methods for horseshoe crab aquaculture husbandry have been developed to achieve sustainable hemocyanin supplies for hemolymph harvest and biomedical applications. With regard to unique needs and benefits for the transplantation of corneal tissue, the aim of this patent is development of an antioxidant and broad-spectrum microbicidal that is benign to endothelial and endothelium cells to preserve and maximize the viability of a pathogen-free specimen.